#but I'm not a healthy fertile women either am I?

[exausta-verytired]

the claim that those weird "what organs do you have?" could benefit infertile women is very weird for me BEING one and also chronically ill from the age of 12. every health questionnaire I've ever had to fill includes the questions: do you have any health conditions? what surgeries have you gone through? there's where I can tell them I have lost both my tramps but only one of my ovaries and 5cm of my intestine to endometriosis specifically. it's better for questions like that to be dissertative otherwise the checklists would be endless. there are no pregnancy tests being wasted on me anymore.

I understand there has been neglect and discrimination cases against trans men in gynecological care. I don't understand why the concern wouldn't be making transphobia a just cause for firing and suing doctors who prioritize their own religion and politics over a person's health. as well as educational projects both for doctors with that population and aimed at the trans population itself emphasizing how they still have to see doctors regularly what their rights are and how to get heard. that's how we've always done things here and Brazil is a reference in LGBT activism especially in healthcare.

or is the problem admitting lesbians have faced similar problems with medical misogyny and discrimination? that heterosexual and gender confirming women have also died in neglect cases because the already less funded field of gynecology hates dealing with any patient who is not already pregnant or at least looking to get so because that is their priority?

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

Do you have pcos? or any kind of health problem that makes it hard for you to lose weight? I'm just curious, don't answer it if you don't feel comfortable

Ok so I got a couple messages asking this same thing, as well as people suggesting that “just lose weight and then try again”, so I’m gonna put a bunch of information (and I mean A BUNCH of information) under a cut here that explains everything and why “just losing weight” isn’t a solution nor is it the problem. Like, at all.

If you don’t want to read all of this, you really don’t have to. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom and I wouldn’t blame you for just scrolling straight there and skipping my rant lol

I don’t have PCOS, no, my weight is mostly a “side effect” of my mental health and years of trying different medications to help with that. Just in case some people aren’t aware, two of the most common side effects of anti-depressants are increased appetite and weight gain. That coupled with one of the two most common symptoms of chronic depression — lack of energy and motivation — means that over the years I’ve slowly put on weight.

Even though every doctor insists on telling me I’m overweight and need to lose weight as though I’m completely oblivious to my own body and such an idea as losing weight has never occurred to me before, I have in fact tried to lose weight many many times over the years with very little success no matter how healthily I ate and how much I exercised. The only time I have ever had success was back in my 20s when I switched to a gluten and dairy free diet to try to fix another issues I was having with my gut. This is why, in the past few weeks, Mr Sandwich and I have been slowly switching our diets to be gluten and dairy free.

BUT even though I am doing that, and exercising as much as I can with my limited energy, it’s not enough. I can lose weight, sure, but I can’t lose enough weight quickly (and safely) enough to be able to do IVF, which I’ll get to in a minute. So it’s not always as simple as “just lose weight”, everyone is different and despite what most people think, a lot of overweight people don’t chose to be that way. Why anyone would think that is beyond me, but a lot of people do and because of this you get people treating fat people as less than human, as though we’re not worthy of any kindness or sympathy because obviously we had to have done this to ourselves, right?

This is also why I get so annoyed when people equate being overweight to being unhealthy. The whole “overweight people are twice as likely to die early” bullshit is nonsense! Sure sometimes it’s the case, but not always. I am not medically unhealthy at all. Apart from being unable to conceive and my mental health issues, neither of which are a symptom or side effect of my weight, I am actually perfectly healthy. Over the past few years I’ve had every test anyone could come up with to try to find out why I wasn’t falling pregnant and that includes things like liver, kidney and thyroid function, cholesterol, diabetes and blood sugar tests, blood pressure, the list goes on. Everything everyone always associates with fat people, all of it was tested, and everything came back perfectly normal. I had a doctor literally say to me “If I hadn’t seen you in person, I would never have known you were overweight based on these results”, which just goes to show you how biased even doctors can be.

Warning: If you don’t wanna learn some interesting stuff about fertility and reproduction, don’t read any further.

So why am I trying IVF if I’m healthy?

Fun fact: When a woman talks about her “biological clock” ticking, it’s not even a joke; a woman’s biological clock is like a clock counting down from the moment she’s born… or maybe it’s more like an hourglass? Either way, unlike men, who can produce viable sperm from the time they hit puberty until the day they die, women have all the eggs they will every have in their entire life already tucked away in their tiny little ovaries from the moment they form as a fetus. That ovarian reserve starts at around 6-7 million follicles during the fetal stage, by the time that new baby girl is born that number has already dropped to 1 million, and by the time she hits puberty she’s only got about 300,000 left. Of those 300,000, only about 300-400 will be ovulated during her entire lifespan. That number obviously continues to decrease when a woman ovulates each month right up until they run out and that is when the woman will go through menopause, and there is no way to raise that amount either. Once the eggs run out, that’s it, there’s no more. Pretty grim huh?

By my age (35), a women with perfect reproductive health will have an AMH (Anti-Müllerian hormone, essentially an indicator of how many eggs you have) level of around 5.1 pmol/L (2.3 ng/mL) but for some reason, my ovaries seem to think I’m actually50. My AMH level is 0.3 pmol/L (0.1 ng/mL), which is considered EXTREMELY low and essentially what that means is I will never be able to conceive naturally. My only chance to conceive and carry my own biological child will be through IVF.

Now, it’s super important to note that low AMH has absolutely nothing to do with weight. There are a lot of different reasons that AMH levels can be low and they could be anything from hormone imbalance to a side effect of cancer treatments, from smoking to mumps. My hormones are normal, I’ve never had cancer or mumps, and I don’t smoke; in my case, it’s most likely due to constant and severe amounts of stress (like years and years of it). But seeing as there’s no medical way to test that, the cause of my low AMH has been deemed by my doctor as idiopathic (unknown). So while weight does have some affect on conceiving naturally, in my case it wouldn’t matter how much I weighed because my AMH level would still be low even if I wasn’t overweight.

In Australia, there are these wonderful things called Low Cost or Bulk Bill IVF clinics. At a private IVF clinic you’d be looking at about $10-15k (Aussie dollars) a cycle for IVF, but at a bulk bill clinic they can charge as little as $800! Unfortunately at these low cost clinics you’re not able to chose your doctor either, you just get whoever is available so that’s a problem too. But the way they’re able to keep costs low is a combination of Medicare rebates (Australia’s free health care system) and the fact that they don’t use full sedation during egg collection which costs a buttload of money because anesthetic. They use a combination of local anesthetic and twilight sedation, which means lower cost for the patient, it’s win win… unless you’re overweight. For reasons I have yet to figure out — because not a single clinic can come up with any reason every time I ask — most clinics demand you be under a certain weight before they’ll treat you. I’m not going to tell you my exact weight but it’s not anywhere near this stupid limit.

Another fun fact: This weight limit is non-existent in private clinics but I don’t have, nor could I get, $10-15k. The fertility specialist I spoke to yesterday also suggest bariatric (lap band) surgery as though that were an actual viable option. Like, listen lady, if I had the money for that (anywhere between $5-20k), don’t you think I would be using that to go to a fat-friendly private clinic instead of talking to your rude arse at a low cost clinic?! 

This all brings me back to the TL;DR of it:

Here’s the problem I’m facing. A year ago when my AMH (egg supply) was tested it was 1.4 pmol/L (0.6 ng/mL), which was already very low then, but it’s dropped down to 0.3 pmol/L in a little over a year, so at that rate I’m going to run out of eggs and be hitting early menopause most likely before the end of the year. At 35 years old.

Merry Christmas to me.

This has nothing AT ALL to do with my weight but for some reason these IVF clinics have a weight limit and there is absolutely no way I can lose enough weight (safely and healthily) before I run out of eggs, hence why I’m so mad. Even if I had barbaric surgery it still wouldn’t be enough time! None of these stupid clinics give a shit about that, all they keep saying is “lose weight and then come back to us”, as though I have all the time in the world!

My only options now are to a) rob a bank and take my fat arse to a private clinic. b) rob a bank, get myself some bariatric surgery and take a buttload of speed to lose weight SUPER fast, and then take myself to a low cost clinic. c) rob a bank and use the money to buy a baby. Or d) continue to do as I’ve been doing and will continue to do regardless of what happens and that’s lose weight the safe and healthy way and run out of eggs while I’m at it.

Last fun fact of the post: All of this could have been avoided had my stupid GP tested my AMH levels 5 YEARS AGO when I asked him to! It would have been low then as well but not as low so I would have had more time AND back then I would have just scrapped in under the ridiculous weight limit!

/rant

[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

but if i don't wanna have kids then why can't i use birth control

There are several good reasons. Some of them depend a little more on whether or not you are religious. ( You do not have to tell me if you are/aren't, it is not for me to know if you don't want to tell me.) One of the reasons is that none of them are a hundred percent effective. Buckle up, this may be long. Which is why there's a cut.

First off is health issues. Our bodies are not meant to ingest fake estrogen and fake progesterone and the plethora of chemicals that pharmacies use in birth control/morning after pills. There are many articles and studies that explain in much better detail exactly what happens to our bodies when we use these things. Warning: it's not pretty. Big Pharma likes to make big bucks and they don't really care if these items are inherently harmful. Look up these articles if you want, you may have to search a little harder and ignore the ones made by Big Pharma and affiliates. As I said, they are never your friends.

IUDs ( the copper T doctors have to shove into your womb) are foreign objects that you are putting in a delicate and intimate part of your body. And opening said object like an umbrella inside of you. It also inhibits a vital action. Menstrual cycles aren't simply for having babies, it also balances hormones, which keeps us healthy. ( the whole not having a menstrual cycle also applies to oral birth control/morning after pills.) The amount of fake hormones you'll need to ingest simply to balance them out after you get an IUD is horrendous and I would never recommend it. Sure lots of doctors will tell you IUD are safe. Many will also tell you they're not safe. Do your own more in depth research if you want more info on this. But, if you want my opinion, sticking something made of a heavy metal( please no music puns!) into your soft and tender womb just sounds like a bad, bad idea.

Condoms are a chemical leeching latex that suffocate the skin of the dick. And they very rarely work. As either a barrier for STD's or as a birth control. Next...

I get it. You want to have sex. Sex is fun. And great! Sex is also for making babies. So if you don't want babies, then what?

You could stop having sex. If you are a Christian/Catholic/ Orthodox, you should not be having sex outside of marriage. If you're not religious, you should be doing that either. But I CANNOT FORCE YOU TO DO OR NOT DO ANYTHING!

So, if you decide to continue having sex or to have sex or you are married and are thus having sex, ( technically, you should not have gotten married if you don't want children, but again this is a slightly more religious issue, I am not assuming you are religious OR married and you do NOT have to tell me if you are religious or married.)

There is natural ways of avoiding pregnancy. Mainly you keep your legs shut when you are ovulating. There are many ways you can tell when you are ovulating( Much easier to tell if you're not on any oral birth control/IUDs and the like.) You also are not guaranteed to become pregnant if you have sex and he spills inside of you and you are ovulating, the window in which your egg can be fertilized is so tiny( about 12 hours every month) that sometimes I'm surprised women get pregnant at all.

Getting pregnant is normally not NEARLY as easy as Hollywood likes to portray.

Another reason not to use oral birth control and morning after pills is that often, they kill the baby. Not always, ( the rest of the time they keep the baby from actually happening) and that's actually really tragic for that little life. I'll leave that at that.

All this to say, I am giving you facts and advice. Whether or not you ( or anyone else) takes that advice and listen to those facts is entirely up to you and you ONLY. Remember, I CANNOT FORCE YOU TO DO ANYTHING! If you want to use condoms and birth control and have sex when you shouldn't. I will not stop you, ever.

I just want you to be informed of the consequences of what COULD happen if you do.

Also, you asked.

Hope this was helpful and informing.

[topconfessions]

are women who are childfree being shamed?? to me it's normal to not want kids at all. not everyone has that same type of mentality "go to school, graduate university, work, get married and have babies" and that's it.

I don't think childless women were being shamed? I think these days in 2021 not as often as let's say 2001 or 1991 and below. Those were golden periods for shaming. I myself always have people try to invalidate me and they don't like my response when I seem mortified at the thought of having kids whenever someone at work or elsewhere asks me "so how you have any children?" And when I give a shock face or look uncomfortable they give me a default response of " it's normal at your age or a lot of people your age have kids" like cool ok but I'm not fucking people and I'm not on this earth to be like everybody else especially when I don't look like everyone else. Chile please. Realistically everyone cheats (no I never been cheated on or dated thats seriously to that degree to be in that position) and those relationships where they don't need either a lot of luck, divine timing, classic organic bonding and love that isnt influenced and manipulated by social media and trends of today or marrying someone our of circumstance. I am very neutral and indifferent on marriage. It won't make or break me if I am or not but I don't want kids while unwed. Even if I got a divorce or separation later even an annulement I can at least say I didn't conceive my kid while pregnant. And I would never be caught in these streets like Nikki Bella begging a man to have a kid with me to secure the bag only to huff, lose him, the end up having a kid by a guy I settled for on an oopsie that is framed as organic planning. Never me. And if I did have a kid unmarried then the guy better be wealthy, rich or well off so the child and me is taken care of above middle class standards.

It's not even about material instincts to me. Some people aren't meant to be parents nor fit and some have a greater purpose. Anyways yeah if this is about Rihanna then I truly see her becoming a mom in her 40s or before 50. She will be a mom eventually just not now. I'm irritated that she will probably get knocked up by ASAP instead of the Arab. But then again I rather have a kid based on security and not so much love but she doesn't need security so she can choose love.

With Beyonce I personally just in my own opinion don't respect her. Also unrelated (kinda) I don't believe in the phrasing people use "___ is a blessing" or "my child came as a result of X or I didn't originally intend in having X or X was unexpected but a blessing" in Some cases childern are and they are very much blessings if you are a Charlotte type of woman or man (sex and the city) and want so badly to be a parent buy you can't due to fertility issues or the wrong men in your life. A child is a blessing if they are happy healthy and you are fit to be a good parent in a healthy enviorment even if you are poverty striken. A blessing is a child beating the odds when they have health issues stacked against them.

But to me being reckless or popping out kids for all the wrong reasons then trying to clean up the oops baby situation by saying it's a blessing is abhorrent and tactless to me. I don't like it. If you are in a non temporary state or crisis and aren't 100% as a person and are in a harmful situation but want to use your baby as a golden beacon saying it's a blessing, I don't like it. But then again...

I feel like I'm the only person who recognizes the magnitude of a life changing decision having kids is and keeping it is (equally life changing to have one and put it up for adoption or abort unless you don't give a fuck) like that is a life changing thing you cannot reverse minus abortion & adoption / birth control. People don't wanna spend $600 on a watch or $100 on lipstick or $12 for a hot dog but y'all will pop out kids for bums who won't even be in your life or the kid life unless it's an obligation, which will cost you $15 -$30,000 minimum for raising a kid tops. I find it to be a form of escapism.

maybe I'm a maniac or weirdo but I need to be self actualized individual and really have all of my fears, traumas, problems fixed or healed before I can be responsible and shaping another person life. I need to be the best version of myself with no regrets and set an example for the future kid so they can do better than me and never face half of the hell I've faced.

Anyways this got too deep LOL but I see Beyonce has wealth, luxury and the excessive fruits of her labor blinding her future childern cause she planting the seeds for blue to potentially find her own Jay when she gets older and get walked on. But luckily for Blue unless Beyonce is a stingy mom and wants to have her find her own, Blue won't need a Jay for a come up as she has her own money. I just think Rihanna has a leg up on Beyonce with that. Rihanna may have been an industry pass around but it was for her own personal enjoyment and not cause she needed to be like Beyonce. But I am sure Beyonce loves her kids dearly but I'm disappointed in her for trapping herself with Jay with 3-4 kids cause she still hopelessly in love. A shame.

And look at Michael Jackson. He didnt have naturally black kids of his own and these white kids (no offense to any of the followers) aren't upholding his dying wishes and ideals. Paris is doing everything Michael begged her not to do and didn't want for them. Prince looks nothing like him and supports Joe beating on Michael in his youth and blanket who actually is his most likely is off the grid, obsecure yet looks angry all the time. Child.

What a mess.